#when your mother defines you more than almost anything else but you've never met her <3

[serendipity0930]

Day Three (April 28th): LGBT+ Sam / Favourite Sam Relationships / Sam & Family "oh antic God" by Lucille Clifton // 12x01 / 01x01 / 12x02 / 01x01 / 04x21

[roppongi-division]

ARB Birthday Special 2024: Mireya Quinlan

~~ July 31st ~~

"The question isn't who's going to let me, it's who's going to stop me."

Login Lines:

"Oh, you're here early! I was just wrapping up today's session at the center. These girls, they're picking up the dance so quickly! It's still not perfect, but they're steadily getting better."

"A gift? Now, why would… Oh! It's that time of the year again, isn't it? How could I forget my own birthday? And here I was giving Kai crap for forgetting his birthday a few months ago. Must be all the late nights at the club. ...But anyway, thank you, dear, you're a sweetheart."

Voice Lines:

" 35 years old. ...Well, I can't say I'm 'young' anymore. You know I almost let it slip by this year, the day I turn another page in my life's story. The girls at the rec center, they threw me this surprise party. They even put on a dance, just for me. It was their way of saying thanks, but really, it's me who should be thanking them. They've given me so much more than they realize: purpose, laughter, and a reminder of the power of second chances."

"My mother… not even a whisper from her today. But then again, what did I expect? We're two worlds apart now, and I prefer it that way. Sometimes, I catch myself wondering, 'What's she doing now? Does she ever think of me?' But those thoughts, they're like shadows: fleeting and better left behind. I've got my own life, a life filled with music, love, and the laughter of my son. That's all the family I need."

"My childhood wasn't the stuff of fairy tales, far from it. A controlling mother, an absent father, spending most of time being dressed up like some doll for people to gawk and stare at… But look where that road led me. To Kai, to Zakari, to a nightclub that's my realm. Every step, every misstep, it's all been part of this dance. And for that, for all of it, I'm thankful. I’m exactly where I’m meant to be."

"...You know, it's funny. Society has this way of labeling us, telling us what we can or cannot do at certain ages. But me? I've never been one to dance to anyone else's rhythm but my own. I'm not 'young' by the books, but I've got more fire in me than those half my age. Let them dare to call me 'old,' and they'll learn just how fierce this 'Gypsy Queen' can be. Age is just a number, and I refuse to be defined by it. I'll keep living, dancing, and loving with all the passion I've always had. That's a promise."

"Ah, mi amor. ...Thank you. I'm glad to see you took time out of your busy schedule of making music to wish me a 'happy birthday'. ...Oh, don't be silly, love. That was just a small threat. But I am glad that you remembered. ...Ha, yes it has been a long time since we've met and we are still here. I've said it before, but I am eternally thankful for you, my husband."

"Oh? And what's this now? You always find new ones to surprise me, love. Oh, a custom necklace with my name? 'My Gypsy Queen'. ...Oh. It's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kai. You've made this day even more special. I love you, mi amor."

"Zakari, good to see you up and about today. Usually, you insist on sleeping past noon when you don't have classes. ...Oh, so my birthday is the reason you're up. Well, thank you. Anything to keep you from wasting the day away. ...Because you are my son and you don't know better, I'll let that one slide. But for your sake, my son, do not refer to me by the 'three-letter word' again, okay dear? ...Good, glad you understand."

"So, I assume you're heading out now to freelance across the city again? ...Oh, and what are these now? …Belly dancing CDs? You chose these yourself? ...Oh, that’s so thoughtful of you. I can't wait to dance to these. Thank you, my dear son, you've made your mother very happy."

Kai Lines:

"Happy birthday, Mireya. ...Well, of course I remembered. I seem to remember a certain someone threatening me on my birthday that if I forgot theirs, I'd be confined to the living room sofa for the foreseeable future. ...Ha, if you say so, love. But, really and truly, I didn't need a reminder to help me remember one of the most important days of the year. It's the day you were born, so if I ever forget, then shame on me."

"And to show I haven't forgotten, I have this for you. It's a necklace. Read what's one the front. ...Thank you, I'm glad you like it. ...And I love you, my darling wife."

Zakari Lines:

"Hey mom! ...Hey, if I don't need a reason to get up early, why not sleep in? Besides, most of my classes are in the afternoon anyway. But truthfully, I woke up cause its your special day! Happy birthday, by the way! How does it feel to be '35'? Your so old now! ...Haha. Come on, mom, it was just a joke. You still look beautiful, really! I'm sorry! ...Sheesh, remind me never to mention anything about numbers around you..."

"Yeah, I'm about to head out. But first... happy birthday! Yup, they're belly-dancing CDs! I saw them while browsing the store one day and thought you'd like them. ...Glad you like them, mom! Enjoy them! I'm about to head out! Happy birthday again!"

[pixiemunsons]

when life gives you lemons (c.b)

colin comes back from greece to a woman, not a girl

a/n: i'm working on hidden in plain sight pt2 as well as all of my requests so if you've requested something it’s in the works! also i'm holding a 1500 follower drabble special sunday night so pls request for that<3

reader is eighteen colin is twenty one, sneaking around, fingering basically lol

this is shameless smut by the way i'm not even gna justify it

you often thought growing up that you had a lot more pride than some of the girls you watched take to the marriage mart. you and eloise, your constant companion, often poked fun at the girls who fluttered their eyelashes and preened at any man who may be seen as suitable. the both of you had decided together that, once you were out in society, you would never chase a man, no matter his standing or how lovely his eyes were.

your resolve had broken exactly two weeks and three days into your first season.

you had walked into what felt like the millionth ball that week, and it was only a wednesday. your mother, along with lady bridgerton, had caught onto you and eloise’s plot to stick together like glue all night and avoid any and all men that approached either of you, and had kept you forcibly separated. eloise had already been accosted by no less than three different men for dances, and every opportunity she had she caught your eye with a mixture of terror and boredom plastered across her face. you were secretly enjoying it; no one had yet roped you into a dance, though there was plenty of time yet. so you watched from the sidelines, entertained at your friend’s plight.

‘you really shouldn’t laugh at the poor girl. that’s my job.’

startled, you look up at where the deep voice had come from, only to be met with the tanned and chiselled face of your old friend colin, and it took all you had not to fling yourself into his arms. if you hadn’t been in such polite company, you might have just done that. he had been on a tour of europe for the last three years, and you had no idea he was to be back so soon. in his time away, he had changed so much, and a stirring in your lower stomach told you that it was a very welcome change. he had been a boy of almost eighteen when he had left, shorter than his older brothers and, you felt, not quite the person he was ready to become. in front of you, however, stood a man six inches taller, strong and defined. unbeknownst to you, colin was thinking very much the same thing. when he had last seen you, you were fifteen and only just edging into the blossom of womanhood. but now, he could see, you had positively flowered in the last three years. your baby fat had melted away into a curvy waist and perfectly wide hips, and he found himself noticing that other areas of your anatomy were now at least twice as big as the last time he saw you and, he noted guiltily, almost spilling out of your dress. 

you noticed him looking at you as you gazed up at him through your eyelashes, and you couldn’t help the heat that spread down your neck and chest at the thought of him staring. he had always just been eloise’s friendly older brother, and it wasn’t even as if you knew him fantastically. if you were being honest, you saw much more of benedict, whom you had come to regard as a friend. you had sat for his paintings more times than you could remember, and the platonic love that the two of you shared had become closer to siblings than anything else. but you definitely weren’t looking at colin as a brother right now. you asked about his travels, and as he spoke he lost himself, almost as if in his mind he was still in the places he described. not that you minded; if he paid too close attention, he would notice that instead of listening to his words, you were observing how his green eyes flashed with excitement and counting the freckles across his nose.

───✱*.。:。✱*.:。✧*.。✰*.:。✧*.。:。*.。✱ ───

before reuniting with you, colin believed himself to be a worldly man. after all, he’d travelled the globe, seen things some men couldn’t even imagine. climbed the grand steps of the temple of olympian zeus, sailed the rhine from liechtenstein to amsterdam, toured the colosseum. he had done things he never in a million years imagined he could.

but then you had come along.

and his world had exploded.

everything colin thought he knew about life was obliterated in the instant he had laid eyes on you, and he knew he would never be the same again. he had no idea that women could be so beautiful. he was not a green boy, of course. a man like him couldn’t see the wonders of the modern world without becoming acquainted with the fairer sex. but, for the first time in his life, colin realised he could enjoy women like he enjoyed the world. in your hair, he saw the waves of the mediterranean, and he could have dived into your eyes and swam in them forever. your cheeks were the same colour as netherlands tulips, and your lips… he gulped at the thought. not the time, colin, get yourself together. or you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do. he was starting to become convinced that god hated him, when the worst thing that could have happened did.

you spilt your lemonade down yourself.

your cup slipped, and you let out a gasp that stirred something in colin’s stomach. he watched, mouth open, as the liquid ran down your chin, across your throat and chest and in-between your breasts, into your dress. you cried out, ‘it’s so cold!,’ but it had barely registered in his mind. instead, he was watching the gooseflesh that pimpled the skin right down to your chemise; he had to hold onto the table next to him when he realised that the lemonade had spread within your dress, hardening your right nipple which was now pressing against the drenched fabric. you could have sworn you heard colin growl, before he seemingly composed himself and held out a hand, offering to escort you to somewhere private to clean off. the two of you stole away quickly and seemingly unseen, and colin pulled you up a corridor before pushing you into a small room.

well, more of a cupboard, really. the door closed behind the two of you, and you suddenly found yourself toe to toe with the tall man before you.

‘i see you don’t know your way around, mr bridgerton.’

‘why ever would you suggest that, miss y/l/n?’ he quirked a brow down at you in the dim light of the room, and you felt as if the breath was stolen from your chest.

‘it would appear that you have brought me to a cupboard rather than a washroom.’ the flirty expression on his handsome face suddenly morphed into something… dangerous. you weren’t scared of him, exactly, even though you knew that if anyone was to walk in right now there would be serious consequences. no - you were nervous. colin leaned down until his lips were just inches from your own, and you could feel his breath on your cheeks, bringing a hot blush to your cheeks.

‘i plan on cleaning you up myself.’

and with that, he pushed his lips to yours. tentatively, at first, slowly, giving you the chance to pull away. you had never been so close to a man before, so you were acting on pure instinct when you pressed your lips against his harder and curled your hands up into his lapel. he made that same growling noise he had in the ballroom, and you meant to ask him about it before suddenly, gloriously, his nose was nuzzling at the back of your ear and he was kissing - no, licking - down the column of your throat, and your eyes rolled back in your skull when you realised he was sucking the lemonade from your skin. his rough hands gripped at your hips as he grazed his teeth down your neck with a heated fervour, trying desperately not to mark you but needing everyone to know that you were his, his, his. his tongue followed the sticky trail from your neck to your chest, tracing the lines of your breasts as you gasped against him. one of your hands was holding a shelf above you, supporting your weight as well as you could, while the other was tangled almost painfully in the mess of his brown hair. you noted that it was softer than you thought it would be, and then realised that meant that you had been thinking about how he would feel. he looked up at you for permission, his hand creeping up towards your sodden chest, and you gave it with another searing kiss to his lips. colin noted gleefully that you had learnt to use your tongue from his earlier ministrations, and he couldn’t wait to see what else that tongue had in store for him.

he moved a thumb firmly over your hard nipple, and as your back arched into his hand with a gasp, your breast filled his hand almost perfectly. he reached his head down, refusing to break eye contact, and suckled hard over your dress. the lemonade was tart in his mouth, but he wished more than anything that he could taste you, taste your skin. so, slowly, he moved a hand to your ankle, wrapping it around his waist as he sank to the floor. you looked down at him in confusion - you had been quite enjoying his mouth on your chest, but now he was pressing kisses to your ankle, and you were quite puzzled as to why on earth he was knelt on the floor.

‘colin, what are you do- oh!’

his left hand was gripping your knee, manoeuvring it up and over his shoulder, and the fingers of his right hand were now fiddling with the edge of your underwear. you didn’t even want to think what would happen if someone walked in right now, but you couldn’t really think of anything anyway, not when he was so close to you and the stirring in your stomach had become an incessant flipping and twisting.

colin needed to know that you wanted this. he had only been reunited with you not an hour earlier, but he knew that he wanted you like this every day for the rest of his life. after all, when you had the world in a woman at home, what else could a man like him need? so when you nodded frantically, and he slipped his hand in your underwear to find you absolutely dripping, colin knew he needed to dive right in. so he did.

your breath was coming in short, sharp pants as colin’s hand slid between your folds. you knew you were wet, you could hear it - smell it - in the air. colin had cursed when he first touched you; he had never been with a virgin, and he loved how responsive you were to his every touch. he had half a mind to take you right there, in the small cupboard off a corridor in a random lord’s house in mayfair, but he decided against it. no, he pondered as he slipped first one, then another finger into your slick heat. he should take you on your wedding night. his experienced fingers plunged deep into you, rubbing a spot inside you that had you shrieking into your arm as his other hand stroked over your thighs, hips, backside affectionately. your vision was going hazy around the outsides, and you didn’t know what was happening until you met colin’s green eyes and came completely undone, hips gyrating against his long fingers as you rode out your orgasm, nearly crying at the intensity. colin teased you through it, muttering sweetly and rubbing your knee gently until you were finished. he pulled his fingers out and plunged them into his mouth, quirking a brow at your horrified gasp.

‘colin, stop it! surely, that cant-‘

‘my love,’ he stared at you once more with that lazy, flirty grin, ‘you are delicious.’

[prolifeproliberty]

Hi Katie! I have a question for you. Are you still anti-abortion in cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger? You've probably already answered these, so I'm sorry! But I was just curious as to what your opinion is. 😊

Hi! Thanks for asking! I’m always happy to re-explain my positions, especially on hard cases, because it gives me a chance to practice and to clarify.

Let’s take these one at a time, because they are all very complex.

Rape/Sexual Assault

Rape is wrong. Rape is horrible, evil, despicable...and any other words I can come up with. Rapists should be caught, put on trial, and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Survivors of rape should be protected. They should be supported, loved, and cared for. They should have access to health care that they need, counseling, and support groups. They should have friends and family around them who love and care for them. If that isn’t the case, communities need to step up and fill those gaps.

We can all generally agree on these things. They aren’t controversial. Pro-life people, pro-choice people, conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians...just about everyone. If someone doesn’t agree with those things, we stare at them like they’ve just grown a second head.

But what about the children of survivors of rape?

This is my friend Patti. We met doing pro-life work while I was in college out in California. She was conceived in rape. Her birth mother chose to place her for adoption, and she grew up loved and cared for. She says:

“I want to say that even though the circumstances of my conception were in violence and hatred, I am not my father, nor am I my mother. I am unique. I was created by a loving God and my life is so valuable. And so is the life of every baby conceived — valuable and a gift from God.“

This is Travon. She was conceived in rape. Her mother raised her instead of choosing adoption, and told her about who her father was after her 18th birthday. Today, she is a speaker, wife, and mother. She travels telling her story and advocating for children like her to be protected under the law.

This is Mary. Her mother had paranoid schizophrenia and was married to a man who also had a mental disability. When her mother was raped, the husband went to the police, but ultimately claimed Mary as his own to protect his wife’s reputation. Because of her mother’s schizophrenia, Mary was cared for by another couple, visiting her birth parents periodically. Eventually, when she was five years old, that couple adopted her.

(More stories at SaveThe1.com)

Do any of these people look like they were conceived in rape? What would that look like? My friend Patti told me that she has heard people refer to those conceived in rape as “devil spawn.” Should they have horns and tails? Should they carry pitchforks?

Or are they children? Teenagers? Adults? Mothers and fathers? Husbands and wives? People?

The circumstances of conception, no matter how violent, how terrible, do not reduce the value of the child conceived. If abortion is wrong because it kills a human being, then it is wrong no matter who that human being’s father is.

What about the mother? Like I said above, I am all in favor of resources and support for survivors of rape. I am all for counseling to help them process and heal. Abortion will not solve their problems. It will not take away their nightmares. It will not take away their fear, their pain. It will only take away the life of their child, who has no guilt in how he or she was conceived.

Meet Darlene. She was not only conceived in rape, but as a teenager she became a victim of child trafficking and became pregnant from rape herself. She says that in order to escape from her captor, she pretended to have an abortion. Now she is married with five children and two grandchildren.

Darlene, despite her own difficult childhood and the way she was forced into motherhood at a young age, has made it her life’s mission to protect the lives of children like her and her oldest child.

She says:

“I am so passionate about the value of every life; whether one is conceived with wine and roses, in a test tube or as a result of violence. I absolutely reject the utilitarian view that people are valuable only if they can contribute to society in arbitrarily contrived ways. We should all hold to the Declaration of Independence’s admonition that each of us is endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights: the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These God given rights are consecutive, not concurrent. Without the right to life, nothing else matters.“

I have included all of these stories here not because they prove my point. I include them because these are the real human beings we’re talking about when we talk about abortion in the case of rape. We need to remember these faces, these names, every time someone says “cases of rape are only 1% of abortions, we shouldn’t be a stickler over 1%.” Every time someone says “a pregnancy from rape is only a terrible reminder for the mother.” Every time someone says “abortion is okay for the same reason that rape is wrong, because of bodily autonomy.”

These are the people we’re talking about killing.

Pro-lifers know that abortion kills children and hurts women. So why should we abandon those women and children who have also been hurt by rape to the additional pain and death of abortion?

Incest

This is very similar to the case of rape, and many people put these two together. However, I gave incest its own section so I could deal with what does make it different.

In the case of incest, we have an extra layer of complexity that makes these cases exceptionally painful. In the case of incest, we usually have a young girl who is raped by a close family member, often her own father. She has been scarred in ways that someone who didn’t experience that can never understand. And now she’s pregnant, probably at a very young age.

What do we do?

First, we get her out of that situation as quickly as we can. We get her to a safe place, and we do everything we can to make her feel safe. We don’t want her to be worried about her rapist coming back for her, at least no more than she has to be.

We put her rapist in jail. We make sure that he is punished to the fullest extent of the law. Perhaps we even find comfort in knowing that in prison, he will be rejected even by other criminals for the nature of his crime.

But she’s still pregnant. And she’s still a child. What do we do?

We love and care for her and her child. We find a permanent home for her, through adoption or through other family members if possible. We give her power over the process as much as we can so she feels like she has some control. We talk to her about adoption and parenting, and we let her make the decision. If she chooses parenting, we work with her new guardians to make a plan for her welfare and the child’s. If she chooses adoption, we give her the opportunity to meet potential adoptive parents and choose the family that she wants her child to have. We give her the choice between open and closed adoption, so that she doesn’t feel like her child was taken from her.

We don’t kill her child.

Just like those conceived in rape, people conceived in incest are still people. They are human beings with the same right to life as any other human being. We cannot abandon them either.

If abortion is wrong because it kills a human being, then it is always wrong.

Health/Life of the Mother

This case is almost more complex, because here we get into the definition of abortion. For our purposes, I am defining abortion as a procedure that intentionally takes the life of the preborn child.

There is one case that comes the closest to abortion being necessary, and that is a tubal pregnancy. In these cases, the embryo implants in the fallopian tube. With current medical technology, we have no way to save the child. If we do not intervene, the child will grow, the tube will rupture, and the mother can die from hemorrhaging. So we have to intervene and remove the child from the fallopian tube.

I do not consider this an abortion. Our goal is not to kill the child, but to save the mother. If, someday, we found a way to save the child and the mother, we would do it. But currently, we can’t. A doctor’s job is to save as many patients as possible, but the loss of a patient does not mean the doctor is a murderer. He or she is only guilty of murder if the patient is intentionally killed.

This same reasoning applies to every other case. It is wrong to intentionally kill the child. However, if the child needs to be removed to save the mother’s life, we can do so. We just need to be sure that we are also concerned for the life of the child, and doing everything we can to save that child’s life as well.

Some will argue that late-term abortion is necessary to save mothers, but this makes no sense. Sure, and early delivery might save the life of the mother. But why should dismembering, poisoning, or beheading that child in the process do anything to improve the mother’s health?

For more on this from an actual doctor (which I am not), watch this video of an interview with Dr. Anthony Levatino. Dr. Levatino was an abortionist and is still an OB/GYN. He worked out of a regular practice rather than an abortion clinic, and so he would routinely do an abortion in one room and then talk to a mother who was keeping her child in the other. He saw patients with complicated and high-risk pregnancies. He knew, even then, that abortion was not necessary. In fact, as he says in the video, for late-term patients an abortion is more dangerous than an early delivery. A late-term abortion might take up to three days, while a c-section delivery could take an hour. If the mother’s life is truly in that much danger, which would you choose?

Every case is different when we’re talking about high-risk pregnancies, but we can tackle each of them in a pro-life way by following a simple rule: treat both mother and child as patients. If we are doing that, we will find the best approach that saves the most lives.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask for any clarification on anything I’ve said here.

[perfectackeracy]

considering what you've already written on the topic of eren's behavior during chapter 84 up until recently; what do you think of him as a character in general?

Eh, I’ll give my judgement when the story will be over. He is the main character after all and I feel like giving a judgement now would be too premature, despite us nearing the end of the manga. I’ve got the beginning but the end is absolutely necessary for me to answer your question properly.

Still, if you want something partial, but still long, follow me under the cut (too bad for mobile users because screw the interface right).

It truly depends of how Isayama writes him at the end, if he really intended him to be some normie who tried to be a hero and change things, but failed, or… something else. Indeed, the end heavily relies of what’s presented to us at the beginning:

“No… But I feel like I just had the longest dream.. What was it? Now I can’t remember…” - Ch.1

Flashback? Future vision? We all thought till chapter 89 came that future vision was bull. It took a whole chapter to suddenly invert the perspective. While there isn’t many chapters left, there’s still facts that are going to pop up that might suddenly change our perception of the characters forever.

…Just like mine with Eren in chapter 84.

I’d actually like the normie one because it would fit what Eren did at the beginning: joining the Survey Corps on a whim because he hates being confined and ended up inheriting a power considered absolute, realizing he made a huge mistake from the start.

It seems Isayama, who previously had a vague idea of what he wanted to do with him, found something more defined. If I recall correctly he felt inspired by Yuki Kaiji, the voice actor from Eren. He even told Araki to make him more pathetic than in the original manga, implying Eren was never meant to be the literal version of a hero, a character with admirable traits.

Usually, the typical shônen protagonist is a character who has a dream, since they were little and do almost anything in order to accomplish it, whether it is becoming the strongest, becoming somebody important, solving a mystery, finding somebody from your life who has gone missing, etc… Their personality vary from manga to manga, but it’s often the cheerful teenager, naive or hot-blooded, capable of being a simpleton due to his lack of experience but also the one who motivates people, is surrounded by his nakama and clashes with rivals and enemies.

The vengeful protagonist also exists, but they’re mostly present in dark shônen or shônen trying to deal with more mature themes without being labeled as a seinen. Eren registers in this category, while building the development of a typical shônen protagonist without exhibiting its qualities: he’s not full of dream and ambition, something a shônen MC should inspire in the heart of young boys. Instead, he’s described as being selfish, having a complex or no ambition at all.

As extra evidence, his highschool AU describes him as the frustrated normie who’s annoyed “in one way or another”. The fake preview from volume 22 describes him as neither belonging to the nerds or the jocks nor having any dreams or interests (it’s interesting how the formulation here ends in “もない” on the three sentences of the description, almost as if Eren meant nothing), despite the wannabe’s reputation being neutral. That’s kinda sad when you think about it actually, because at his core, he really needs to fuel his blank state.

Still, Isayama doesn’t make him wander around aimlessly in the canon storyline and managed to give him a purpose. He strangely carries themes like the Chosen One because people, specifically Grisha imposed that on him. Carla called her son special for the sole reason he was born into this world, that every human who sees the light of the day is considered special. 

Because he was frustrated about “Humanity’s submission against the titans”, that’s what prompted him to step out and defy the “imposed slavery” on him. He wasn’t always like that, though. Meeting and knowing Armin triggered that complex about him lacking ambition.

Eren and Armin meeting for the first time - Ch. 83

When he first met Armin, he befriended him fairly quickly because of their status as outcasts. Eren already showed signs of not belonging to the other kids, probably because he had trouble sharing the same interests as them and also because he gets irritated quickly and gets into fights to shut them up. Funnily enough, those panels show the first signs of Eren’s prevalent traits: fighting back and beating them or else you’re a loser.

“I had never thought about what was beyond the walls until then… I’d only spent my days looking at the clouds in the sky. Not that it’s anything strange for a kid eight or nine years old to not be thinking about anything… but then you came running to me with a book. Both of us were outcasts, not able to get along with the other kids in town. That’s all we were back then. But when I heard you telling me those things… and I saw the look in your eyes. That’s when I knew for the first time. I wasn’t free. I noticed that I had been living in a birdcage for all this time. And that these freakish things had taken my freedom. The world was so big, but they’d forced me into a tiny cage. And when I realized that… I knew I could never forgive them.” - Ch.73

It wasn’t so much about the ocean or the contents of the outside world Eren was motivated for. Because he was aimlessly starting at the sky, he couldn’t believe someone like Armin could conceive something like… ambition. That’s why Eren was intrigued by the look in his eyes. And because the titans were actually obstacles to his personal space, he held a grudge against them. They were in the way, they were giant-sized bullies, they have to be removed.

Eren’s character song actually fist up nicely with his character: “男はロマンだぜ！たけだ君っ“ by Shinsei Kamattechan (lyrics and translation here) illustrates somebody talking to a certain Takeda, who prompts him to disobey his parents and do whatever they want because they’re free, despite them being children (the song talks about spending money carelessly and buying cigarettes). Eren being either one of the kids, wants his taste of freedom without having any authority telling him not to do it.

“From the day we’re born, there was something special about all of us: we’re free” - Ch. 73

Needless to say, I think that attitude and that grudge against the titans pushed him to idolize the Survey Corps and eventually join them. Because they went as far as destroying his district, making him swear extermination on every person responsible.

Then there was his meeting with Mikasa.

“You see Eren, that attitude is why you only have one friend.” - Ch. 5

Here we have yet Eren’s “normie” attitude demonstrated when it comes to Grisha asking him to get familiar with Mikasa. But then, he certainly wans’t expecting corpses.

Eren ready to begin the chase - Ch. 5

I tend to see this chapter as Eren being triggered by seeing dead bodies on the floor. Him seeing Mikasa’s parents being brutally murdered tingled his sense of justice and frustration: “How dare they kill people? This if worthy of the death penalty and I’m going to inflict that to them!”. The way he got close to these bandits is almost as scary as what they were planning to do with Mikasa: he’s approaching the first one by acting like an innocent child with clear murder intent (He’s supposed to be 9!!!). He then proceeds to pin down the second one before repeatedly stabbing himself over and over.

“I stopped dangerous beasts!! They only happened to resemble humans!! If you hadn’t come here, they would have been gone by the time the military police brigade had arrived!! The MPs wouldn’t have made it in time!!” - Ch. 5

Notice how the justification he brings to kill them is because they reduced themselves to low beasts who kill people, and as beasts, it’s “only natural” they deserve a death penalty. Besides, Eren is motivating Mikasa using the same logic he used for Armin: fight or you’re a complete loser.

Eren “teaching” Mikasa - Ch. 5

Needless to say that Eren wasn’t opposed to let Mikasa live in his house. He came to realize years later his attitude towards the bandits was pure impulse, as he gets lectured by Reiner about the meaning of being a soldier in chapter 17.

In the very first chapter of the series, every trait I’ve mentioned till there transpires into his motivation into joining the Survey Corps, so he wouldn’t live as a “caged animal” any longer. He gets upset when people are talking trash about them because he truly believed they were doing it for great justice. And that day, when the wall has been breached, it just so happens that Eren had a weird dream when he was crying and it was finally the day where Grisha showed him the basement. That day truly changed his life, for the best or the worst.

“I hate the idea of spending my whole life… inside the wall, ignorant of what’s happening in the world outside!!” - Ch. 1

But of course, this “outside” serves mostly as an excuse to give him more space. As he declared later: “They’re our lives! we can do whatever we want with them, right?”

When Shiganshina fell, Eren made his vow to kill every single titan left. During that time, he punched Hannes for preventing him from saving his mom. What was interesting is that piece of flashback before scrolling back to present.

“I’ll never be able… to go home again. Up to the end, all I could do was argue and be stubborn! Mom’s gone!! I’m never gonna see her again… Why is this happening to us? Is it because humans are weak? Is crying the only thing the weak can do?! I’m gonna destroy them!! Every last one… of those animals… that’s on this Earth!” - Ch. 2

The night when Shiganshina has fallen was the night where Grisha passed his titan power to Eren. The part where Grisha stated two contradictory statements in relation with chapter 89.

“Eren, get revenge for your mother. You can do it.” - Ch. 71

“Eren… never let this key… out of your sight. And everytime you look at it… remember… that you have to go to the basement room. The injection will cause damage to your memory… That’s why I can’t explain this to you now… but when you go to the basement room someday, you’ll learn the truth… it will be a hard and merciless road… but you have to recapture Wall Maria and get to that room. The power I’m giving you will be useful then. Their memories will teach you how to use it… if you want to save Mikasa… Armin… and everyone else… you’ll have to… control this power!” - Ch. 10

“Dad… Stop it! Dad! What are you doing?! You’ve been acting crazy since mom died!!”, “Eren!! Hold out your arm!” - Ch. 3

“You will be the one… to avenge your mother!!”, “Okay“ - Ch. 63

This moment was really hard to piece out together because what was thought as a contradiction became a succession of events where Grisha scared his son with the shifter power talk, but riled back him for a short while by settling him as one one who will avenge his mom. Earlier, Grisha made his mind and picked him as the legitimate successor of the Attack Titan. Thanks to chapter 89, it may have been inevitable. In this scene, he went from a sorrowful expression to an angry one, almost swapping memories for a brief instant like what happened with Kruger. In any case he burdened Eren with his shifter power and the Coordinate, thus making him bare probably the biggest sin going by Ymir’s curse. 

Because of that, his whole life changed. So did Eldians’.

The next segment is about Eren joining the military, two years after working in a settlement. This is the time where his attitude sort of... changed.

Eren trying to let his will of dominance pushing him forward - Ch. 15

Chronologically, starting from that point, Eren uses “we” when talking about Humanity. Mostly because, as stated by his dialogue in chapter, he believes in unity against a common enemy. He settled the titans as the enemy “humanity” was supposed to defeat, despite him quickly meeting, and clashing with people who didn’t agree with that notion: it started with Hannes not taking his job seriously, then Jean who outright admitted he’d rather live a comfy life inside the walls. Even much later in chapter 72, when Eren mentions that spirit of unity, Armin internally disagrees by thinking about his bullies. 

Eren’s world was mostly an ideal one, where you loop the first opening of the anime and have humanity fighting against the titans, forgetting not every single human is motivated by rage: Mikasa is fine with living with Eren in a quaint place, Levi “the hero” is mostly motivated by Erwin, Jean wanted and comfy life among the MP, people have a very negative opinion of the SC in general, Ymir doesn’t mind living her life for herself despite knowing much more about what’s happening than Eren does...

His biggest obstacle was the first step for 3DMG training, where Keith sabotaged the equipment on purpose. For the first time, Eren felt like his goal just evaporated in the air, with everybody mocking him for it, followed by an argument with Mikasa, who’s trying to dissuade him:

“You shouldn’t set your sights on that anyway. If you’re not cut for it, what can you do? Because at this rate, you’re just going to die in vain. And all your dreams and efforts will be for nothing. I’m saying you shouldn’t aim to be a soldier. You can always support the human race by being a producer. Laying down your life isn’t the only way to fight. [...] ...Your resolve has nothing to do with it. It’s not your decision whether you get to be a soldier, Eren...” - Ch. 16

Eventually, nothing worked. Eren still wants to pass the 3DMG exam. While talking to Reiner and Bertolt, he declares his will to kill the titans is a need he personally feels: becoming a soldier is a way to achieve this. I’m sure he’d find another way out if he can’t pass the exams, mostly because he has nothing left to make him move.

Parts of his personality have been shaped later by Reiner and Annie: Reiner about the solider mumbo-jumbo, Annie because of her techniques aiming to defeat people quickly. He demonstrated these two aspects during his fight with Jean (with Annie and Reiner even looking!). 

“...I see... he was... just venting his feelings. Like I did before... but I’m different now... I’m... a soldier! [...] I’ll use my skills to finish this.” - Ch. 17

The most important part of his training is reserved for hand-to-hand techniques, skills proving themselves to be really useful once Eren shifts to a titan. Seems Annie was really insistent on teaching Eren these techniques as soon as he reminded her of her father, because Eren’s reality was just as misplaced as his. You can see that insistence if you connect chapter 17 and chapter 44 together.

I think I’d rather break this analysis into several parts because it’s getting way too long. Eren faced different trials in Trost, during the FT arc and so on, where he had to deal with huge losses, traitors, the hard truth and eventually, the coordinate settling in.